Quota
by Snap
Summary: The tragic story of another doomed salvage team that found the Antonia Graza. First person POV
1. Chapter 1

**TITLE**: Quota  
**SUMMARY**: The tragic story of another doomed salvage team that found the Antonia Graza.  
**PAIRING**: sort of a Jack/OC… sort of  
**POV**: first person – main character (Johanna Woods)  
**TIME PERIOD**: 3 weeks before the Arctic Warrior salvage team.  
**LENGTH**: 10-15 chapters  
**RATING**: M… Bad language, gore… things your mother would never approve of.  
**GENRE**: Horror/Suspense/Romance (very mild)  
**DISCLAIMER**: I don't own Ghost Ship or anything even affiliated with it. I wish I did 'cause that would be phenomenal. :)  
**AUTHOR'S NOTE**: Like the movie did, I've made the main character in my story a female. Not necessarily because I'm a girl and most certainly not for the reason of self-insertion, but because I think female leads can be a bit stronger (i.e. Ellen Ripley, Sarah Conner, etc.) and also because any woman who is a ship salvager is a complete badass and is worthy of being made a main character.

P.S. I've written other Ghost Ship stories (way before even gave it its own category!) like Ironic and The Greatest Feeling in the World, under a different name. …Gosh, those are old… But anyway, go check them out!! They're awesome!!

…I'm sorry, that was a shameless plug.

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**CHAPTER 1**

I've honestly never been much of a salvager. Never quite fit in or was one of the pack. I was more or less a tag-along, only there because I had no where else to go and no other family to turn to. It's sad, really.

Although 'family' isn't a word I should really be using to describe this brigade of warped chain-smokers. I like to think of us more as a 'fucked up Brady Bunch' that secretly wanted to kill each other, the only one holding us together being my Uncle Robby, the captain.

He makes such an effort, too. But he seems to be oblivious to all the other things like Jones' vulgar behavior towards me and Riley's obsession with pot. It's rare to see that crazy boy straight.

"Jo. Hey, Jo."

I broke out of my daze and looked towards the voice that called my name. "Hm, yeah?"

"Whuddaya want?" I stared at Koorey for a moment. I was confused. "To drink, Jo."

"Oh, um, Bud Light, please." I said as I looked up at the pretty waitress and smiled sheepishly. She nodded her head and smiled back before she trotted away in a skirt that was way too small for her. She needed to wear some pants… her cellulose was showing.

I hated that bar, The White Wolf. It's a god-awful name, but Jones, Koorey, and Stalter all think the waitresses and barmaids are easy; so they liked to hang out there every once in a while. The place was worn-down and filthy. I'm sure I've gotten a disease or two. No, seriously. Especially watch out for the bathroom. I wouldn't touch that toilet seat with a ten-foot pole.

"So, Woods, have you found us another job yet?" Stalter said as she lit her cigarette. She was the only other girl besides me that manned _The Esmeralda_. And my god was she beautiful. Long black hair, big green eyes, a perfect body. Guys just adored her. Too bad she was a staunch lesbian.

"I think so." My uncle glanced at his watch and then towards the door behind him. He seemed anxious, impatient, almost.

"What're you waitin' for?" Jones said what we all were thinking.

As I peered over my uncle's shoulder to see what he was waiting for, a man walked through the door and glanced around the place. He looked a little grubby, wearing green corduroy pants, a matching shirt, and a blue windbreaker. His eyes swept over the table and landed on my uncle. A ghost of a smile passed over his face and he began walking towards us. My blue eyes widened in anticipation. I was excited.

"I think we have a visitor." I said softly to my crewmates. Just as they looked at me the man approached the table. My uncle grinned.

"Hey there, Jack!" my uncle said as he took Jack's hand with both of his and shook it vigorously. He's always been too cheery for his own good. Jack smiled awkwardly. "Pull up a seat!"

Jack grabbed a chair from an empty table nearby and seated himself next to my uncle.

"Guys, this is Jack Ferriman. And I believe he has a job for us." My uncle patted him on the shoulder. Jack's body flew forward with each whack. It was kind of funny.

"Hi." he said softly. Jack waved and his eyes washed over all of us. It was strange; it was almost like he was sizing each one of us up. When his eyes reached me he paused for a moment and briefly smiled. I blushed, I know I did. How could I not? The man was gorgeous, to say the least. He was no Brad Pitt but he had beautiful, dark blue eyes and messy brown hair. Not to mention his little baby face was completely clean-shaven. He looked so… cuddly and innocent.

I tucked my auburn hair behind my ear and looked away. I felt my ears start to burn. God, I'm a fucking idiot.

Anyway, our waitress finally came back with our drinks. "You want somethin', Jack?" My uncle looked at him and smiled.

"No thanks. I'm fine." He was so soft-spoken, too.

I stared at the full Budweiser in front of me. I just… stared at it, not wanting it anymore. So I began to peel and fudge with the label as I listened to the conversation in front of me. I liked to fidget.

"So what's this about a job, Ferriman?" Jones said nonchalantly as he lit a cigarette of his own.

Jack scooted his chair in closer to the table. "Um, alright. I'm part of the Arctic Weather Patrol that flies out over Mackenzie Bay and a couple of weeks ago I was out in the middle of The Straight and I found this." He dug through a small brown backpack he had with him and pulled out a couple of pictures.

Jones snatched one off the table and looked at it for a second. My uncle and Stalter took the others. "Yeah, it's a big boat, Ferriman. Nice job." Jones said sarcastically as he blew a puff of smoke towards him.

Stalter always hated when he did ignorant shit like that. Actually, Stalter just hated _him_. The two never got along. She cocked her head and glared at him. He caught her eye and stared back for a moment. "What?" Jones said with a shrug of his shoulders, like he wasn't a jackass.

"Give 'em goddamn chance to say what he's got to say, Jones." She looked to Jack as Koorey and I snickered. "Now, what's so important about this ship, Jack?"

"Well, I tried radio contact and got nothing. I did several fly-bys and it just looked… abandoned."

Stoner Riley, had remained quiet until then. He usually never talked much anyway. That's because he didn't have anything in common with these people. I could relate to it. "A giant ship like that, man? Abandoned? And in the middle of the Bering Straight? Somebody else hasta know about it."

"I haven't told anyone about it, except for you guys. I did tell the Coastguard about it when I first saw the ship but since its international waters there was nothing they could really do. They noted it and that's all. I forgot about it until I saw it again a couple of days ago. I wanted to do something about it and that's how I met your captain yesterday. We got to talking; he seemed interested and wanted to introduce me to you all."

"Well, then let's get that outta the way." Stalter said as she put out the butt of her cigarette. She pointed to herself first. "The name's Kathryn Stalter. This good man to my left here is Richard Koorey and the gal to his left is Johanna Woods. That little shit next to her is Kevin Riley and then there's James Jones. And you know our captain, Robert Woods…"

Jack nodded and smiled.

"So… what are you lookin' to get outta this, Jack. We haven't discussed that yet." My uncle looked to him with slightly furrowed eyebrows.

"Ten percent of what she's worth. And I want to go with you."

Jones snorted. "Uh, I don't think so buddy. You're not a salvager. It's our boat."

"He's got a point there." Stalter agreed.

"Look, I know the location of the ship. You're going to let that potential money slip out of your hands just because you don't want an extra body on board? There are lots of other salvagers around here, even in this bar, that would die for this opportunity."

My uncle was a greedy man. It was his Deadly Sin, if you will. He was a decent guy, but when it came to his shit or shit that _could _be his… he would sacrifice his _first born_ for it. He sighed and looked down at the table at his unfinished drink. "Fine." He looked back up; his eyebrows still scrunched a little. "But you do what we say when we say it. It's for your safety."

Jack smiled. "Of course."

By the way, during this little conversation Jones saw that I didn't even touch my beer. Without even asking me he snatched it away and chugged it. God I _hate_ that man.

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**A/N**: The next chapters will be a lot longer, I promise. :) 


	2. Chapter 2

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**: The first chapter was more or less an introduction and didn't really describe much or have a lot of dialogue. And I'm deeply sorry about that. I'm a stickler for detail and description and you'll be seeing A LOT of that in this story since it's in the first-person POV. I really want you to feel how Johanna feels and to understand her a little better. …Because she's kind of a weirdo. Also, I apologize for the crapload of similarities between the first chapter of my story and the beginning of the movie (when Epps and the others meet Ferriman for the first time). I have big plans for this story and it will be very different from the film. So… yeah, anywho, read and review.

…Ahh, it feels so good to be back in the Ghost Ship fandom. :)

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**Chapter 2**

As we rounded the Alaska Peninsula and made our way into the Bering Sea I woke up from my nap. I remained lying on my cot for a moment as I looked around the boat. Stalter and Jones were sitting in a booth near the kitchen of our ship. They had a deck of cards in front of them and they were arguing, cigarettes hanging loosely out of their mouth.

"You're a fucking cheater, Stalter! You always have been! Can't stand to loose to me? Can ya?"

"I won, Jones! _Deal_ with it!"

Koorey was probably upstairs guiding our little tug along. I heard his voice over a walkie talkie that Jones had.

"I hear you two all the way up here! Shut _up_! You're distracting and it's pouring like a bitch out here."

Riley was, I'm sure, in the engine room, joint in hand, smoking it up and listening to Bob Marley or Sublime. I'd rather join him than listen to the fuckin' odd couple on the other side of the room.

And finally, in the kitchen (yes, I call it the kitchen, not the galley), stood my Uncle Robby and Jack Ferriman. My uncle was making some coffee and he and Ferriman were looking closely over a map.

Jack glanced up for a moment from the paper he was hovering over and his eyes went about the room until they met mine. He stopped and smiled at me. I smiled back.

Since we had gotten on board _The Esmeralda _I hadn't talked to Jack. I didn't really have much of an opportunity to. As soon as we got on board my uncle had nearly grappled with everyone else for Jack's attention and wouldn't let him go for even a moment.

Before I fell asleep, though, I stared at Jack a lot. I'll admit it. And every now and then, when I wasn't looking, I'd glance up and his blue eyes would be on me. And every time he would blush a little and look away. It was so cute! Yes, I know… I'm a girly girl.

I sat up on my cot and stretched for a moment. A fierce chill ran down my spine and I grabbed my brown, flannel button-up from the end of the bed and slipped it on over my black tank.

"You're an asshole, Jones."

"And you're a cheating hag."

"Fuck you!"

"No! Fuck _you_!"

And that's when Stalter grabbed her glass of beer that was sitting beside the unorganized deck of cards. She paused for a moment before splashing the liquid all over Jones. She stood up and dumped the rest in his lap.

"Go clean yourself up." She growled at him before heading upstairs, probably to hang out with Koorey. He seemed to calm her down when she was drunk or violently angry.

Jones stood up, his 6'1" physique looked menacing as he roared. "You evil _bitch_!" He stormed off to the bathroom.

"Cut it out you two." my uncle said in a monotonous tone without looking up. He was a couple minutes too late. He never really tried with those two, I noticed. He talked to them like he was a neglectful parent of two spoiled, misbehaving children.

I sighed as I stood up. Beer was all over the booth and the cards and if I didn't clean it up then I knew no one would. I slipped into the kitchen, behind my uncle and Ferriman, to grab some paper towels. I ran one under the faucet for a moment and turned around. I almost bumped into Jack.

"Here, let me help you." he said as he went to grab some more paper towels.

"O-oh no, really. I-I got it. You and the captain are busy." I always had a habit of stuttering around attractive men. It made me kind of geeky.

"Don't worry about it. We're pretty much done here. We were just talking about directions and longitudes and latitudes… but he's going upstairs to talk to Koorey, I think."

I looked to my side and saw that my uncle was gathering up the papers that he had been investigating. He looked up at me and smiled. Without saying a word to me he walked away, past the wet and sticky booth, and went upstairs to be with Koorey and Stalter.

I sighed and I realized then that Jack and I were completely alone.

I headed towards the booth with Jack following close behind. I started to wipe down the cards as Jack began wiping the table.

We were silent for a moment. In fact, we stayed that way the entire time we cleaned off the table. I didn't know what to say to him and I got the distinct feeling he didn't know what to say to me, either.

I sat down and decided that I wanted to play cards, now that they were clean, and Jones and Stalter were no where to be found.

He stared at me for a moment. "Um, you can join me." I said gesturing towards the long seat across from me. "I'm just going to play a couple games of solitaire. Don't know how much fun it'll be but it's a lot better than hanging out upstairs with Stalter when she's on the rampage."

Jack smiled and sat down. "I'd love to stay here with you."

I dealt the cards for a hand of solitaire and he watched me intently. "So, umm, Jo," he said my name awkwardly, like it was a newfound word to him, "you and the captain have the same last name, I noticed. You two related or something?"

My eyes remained on the cards in front of me. "Yep. He's my uncle, my dad's brother."

"Oh, I see. If you don't mind my asking, how did you end up on this boat? You seem kinda… young to be a salvager."

I looked up at him and our eyes locked. I didn't want to tell him that my uncle was the only family I had left. I didn't want to tell him that my parents were dead… or that I felt responsible… or that I felt this uncontrollable guilt for it. It was a disturbing issue I had.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. His second question had become disturbingly personal… and I'm sure he didn't mean it like that. "Yeah, I guess 25 is a young age to be a salvager, but you seem kinda young to be a pilot." I retorted. The man looked to be about my age. I paused for a moment before actually answering his question. "My uncle adopted me when I was 17. I became one of the crew when I was 22. I had no where else to go, really. It's a forced lifestyle."

Just as I finished my sentence, Jones burst out of the bathroom. Huge patches of his green pants, crotch, and black tee shirt were soaked, both from the beer and his attempt to clean it up. He reeked. I would have laughed at him if not for the fear that he would crush me with his little finger.

"Where is she?" he said angerly, referring to Stalter.

I raised my eyebrows and pointed up.

He rushed off. "I'm gonna kill her this time. And I don't care who sees." I heard him mutter as he disappeared up the stairs.

Jack chuckled a little. "They don't like each other very much, do they?"

Jack had changed the subject and lightened the mood rather tactfully. I'm sure he sensed my awkwardness about the questions he asked me so he left my answers where they were and didn't pursue them any further.

I smiled. "They hate each other, actually. They're too much alike, that's why. Only difference is Stalter is a girl and Jones is a guy."

That was actually fairly true… They were both stubborn instigators. But I kept my mouth shut about the fact that a while ago Jones had once slept with one of Stalter's many girlfriends and that she tried to kill him. Literally. She broke a beer bottle over the edge of a table and tackled Jones to the ground.

"Yeah, to be honest with you, no one really gets along that well on this boat. We all just kind of… put up with each other." That probably wasn't the smartest thing to say to him, a guest on our boat who had no idea of the crew members' dark histories.

"Wow." Jack said with wide eyes.

I concentrated once again on my cards in front of me as I put the three of spades on top of the two. "Um, yeah. So, uh, tell me about yourself."

I looked back up at him and noticed that he had scrunched his eyebrows and was looking away, as if in thought. "Well, I'm a pilot and I've been a pilot for a while. I don't like it here in Alaska very much and I hope to be moving soon."

I smiled at him. "Where to?"

"Oh, someplace warmer."

"Yeah, I know what ya mean."

He smiled cheekily at me and we both suddenly looked up to the ceiling as we heard Jones and Stalter commence their inevitable argument upstairs.

* * *

Jack and I sat at that booth for quite some time. I stopped playing my lonely solitaire and we played poker and Go Fish. We laughed and talked and smiled at each other. You know, cutsie stuff that females love and that men use as a tactic to get women to sleep with them.

And suddenly it dawned on me. I wasn't sure if it was his handsome eyes… or his charming smile… or his cute, shy attitude…

But I was becoming very attracted to him. And I hoped beyond anything I'd ever hoped for in my life… that he felt the same way.

"I think that coffee's done." Jack said as we both looked to the kitchen and stared at the dinky little coffee machine and the full coffee pot.

I giggled a little. "Yeah, but I'm sure it's freezing by now."

I was actually feeling a little cold myself. My baggy khaki pants weren't doing anything to keep me warm. All I had on was a tank top and a button down shirt loosely over that. I _used_ to have a heavier jacket but thanks to Jones it's now floating along somewhere in the Gulf of Alaska. After that little episode Stalter would always let me borrow one of hers since I didn't have any other really heavy jacket.

I wrapped my arms around myself and rubbed my shoulders frantically.

Jack cocked his head slightly and stared at me. "Are you cold? Where's your jacket? Here…" He began to take off his jacket (aww) but I stood up.

"No, that's ok. Don't worry about it." I walked over to Stalter's cot, which was actually above mine, and I reached for her overstuffed big black coat.

I sat back down with Jack and stared at him. I'm sure he was curious. "My jacket is in the ocean right now."

"Um, why?"

"Ask Jones. He threw it into the Gulf a few weeks back."

"…He doesn't seem like a very nice person."

My voice suddenly gained a strange edge to it. "Yeah, he's not. At all. Ever. I hate him and I wish we had a different first mate. He's a womanizing, inconsiderate, evil piece of shit and I avoid him. I suggest you do the same."

I looked down; slightly embarrassed that I had blurted that out so angrily to a man that meant no harm.

"W-what has he ever… done to you?" Jack seemed almost afraid to ask that question. Well, maybe not because he was afraid of the _question_, but afraid of the_ answer_.

I sighed. His big blue eyes were filled with sadness and sympathy. He seemed genuinely concerned.

"Well… Jones and I—"

"What?" Came a booming voice from the stairwell. Jones was walking down the stairs and stopped on the final step and stared at me. "Jones and I what?"

"Um, nothing. Jack was just asking me about you guys." Kinda true, kinda not. Whatever. I had a split second to think of an answer.

Jones squinted his eyes at me for a moment. He obviously didn't believe me. "Yeah, well, we think we found Ferriman's ship. Get Riley and get your asses back up here. It's the _Antonia Graza_."

I was startled. "Ohmygod." Jones sprinted back up the stairs and I was left sitting at the booth with Jack. And by the look on his face he had no idea what the hell the _Antonia Graza_ was.

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**A/N**: Hope this was a bit longer for ya. 


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